Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Eight people accused of defaming the UAE’s image abroad by producing a spoof documentary have received prison sentences.

American S C and Indians R and A were jailed for a year and fined Dh10,000 each by the State Security Court.

Two Emirati brothers, S D and S D, were given eight months and Dh5,000 fines. A third brother, AD, was pardoned.

A Canadian woman, a British woman and an American man were not detained and were sentenced in absentia to a year in prison and a Dh10,000 fine each.

The judge also ruled that copies of the video should be confiscated.

The 19-minute film was set in Satwa, Dubai, which they depicted as a dangerous neighbourhood plagued by warring gangs. To protect themselves, the characters practise martial arts using items of Emirati national dress including the agal, the black rope worn around the headdress, and naal, the leather slippers.

The detained American, a business consultant and amateur stand-up comedian and the convicted Emirati brothers – one a media and marketing manager and rapper, the other a student and part-time airline worker – posted the video on YouTube in October last year. They were arrested in April this year.

Defence lawyers said their clients had not intended to mock the UAE’s culture or harm its reputation overseas.

They said the video was only intended to be a satire about how suburban teenagers had adopted gang culture and that the video started with a disclaimer saying: “The following events are fictional and no offence was intended to the people of Satwa and UAE.”

The two Emiratis have already spent eight months in prison awaiting the verdict and are expected to be released soon. The American and two Indians will be released next month.

The American's name is Shezanne Cassim; he was born in Sri Lanka and went to University of Minnesota.

Here's the video. A bit long and not quite as funny as they probably intended, but it is harmless...unless you are a thin-skinned UAE official.

I'm sure that jailing eight people (and demanding that all copies of the video be confiscated!) will ensure that the UAE's sterling reputation remains flawless.

By the way, the UAE will host major concerts this year, including Santana, Eric Clapton, the Backstreet Boys, and Herbie Hancock. No one is calling for these artists to boycott the misogynist, intolerant country or to show support for an American in jail for exercising his right to express himself.

That’s right. The same America that until a few years ago led the free world in the global war against terror, now conditions its support for Israel, its chief regional ally in that war, on the Jewish state’s willingness to release unrepentant, mass murdering terrorists back into Palestinian society.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it ought to go without saying that this policy hinders, rather than advances the cause of peace. It is impossible to rationally claim that by coercing Israel into releasing people like Juma Ibrahim Juma Adam and Mahmoud Salam Saliman Abu Karbish that the US is advancing the cause of peace.

According to Mr. Muhsein, “the Palestinian people does not exist.”
Who are we to argue?
Nonetheless, if the very point of “Palestinian” people-hood was something other than trying to rob the Jewish people of our homeland after persecuting us for 13 centuries, I would be more than happy to welcome them into the greater family of nations. However, since the “Palestinians” only emerged as a group for the purpose of doing the Jewish people terrible harm, within living memory of the Holocaust, I see no reason whatsoever in acknowledging them as a distinct ethnicity or nation, particularly given the fact that they are not a distinct ethnicity or nation. Nations do not come into existence for the sole purpose of destroying other nations and even if they sometimes did, those whom they seek to destroy are under no moral or ethical obligation to assist them by recognizing them.Israel should cease undermining its own well-being by dealing with these people. Mahmoud Abbas should be entirely persona non grata, as should the PLO, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority.

The standard defence against any accusation of antisemitism nowadays is to claim that you are an anti-Zionist (generally considered by the main stream media to be a good, liberal, enlightened position) and not an antisemite (generally considered by the main stream media to be a very bad thing). That is certainly the 'defence' that Nicolas Anelka, for example, will be using since even his openly antisemitic hero whom he claims his salute was dedicated to, has already used it himself.
So, following on from my previous posts (the difference between the Nazi boycott of Jews and the Israel boycott movement, and what leftists really believe) I have produced a chart below which obviously confirms that anti-Zionism and antisemitism have absolutely nothing in common.

From a French TV show in 1970, Israeli legend Yaffa Yarkoni singing (in French and Hebrew) the Israeli classic "Bashanah Haba'ah:"

The Hebrew lyrics mean:

Next year we will sit on the porch and count migrating birds.
Children on vacation will play catch between the house and the fields.

You will yet see, you will yet see, how good it will be next year.

Red grapes will ripen till the evening, and will be served chilled to the table.
And languid winds will carry to the crossroads old newspapers and a cloud.

You will yet see, you will yet see, how good it will be next year.

Next year we will spread out our hands towards the radiant light.
A white heron like a light will spread her wings and within then the sun will rise.

You will yet see, you will yet see, how good it will be next year.

Nowadays is it even conceivable that a Jewish Israeli performer could go on a European TV show without being interrupted by the haters along with protests outside and calls for boycott? (Arab Israelis wouldn't have a problem - only Jews.)

“The essence of the difference between us and our neighbors can be seen in one picture,” Netanyahu said at the seventh annual Galilee Conference Tuesday, referring to the sight of throngs of Palestinians giving the released prisoners — almost all of them convicted of murder — a hero’s welcome.
“While we prepare to take very painful steps in an effort to try and reach an agreement that would end the conflict, they, along with their top leadership, are celebrating,” said the prime minister.“Murderers are not heroes,” he declared. “This is not how one educates for peace.”

The official told Channel 2 that Israel felt "deceived" by Kerry, who caved to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' demand to increase the number of prisoners released from 82 to 104, and led him to believe Israel would be willing to release prisoners with Israeli citizenship.
The PMO denied that claim by the official as well, saying Kerry did not deceive Israel on the peace talks, Channel 2 reported.Netanyahu reportedly told Kerry that while Israel was not willing to release Israeli-Arab prisoners as a gesture to the Palestinians, it would be willing to release them as a gesture to the US, in return for the release of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.

"This is day of happiness for our nation, our families and our prisoners, the heroes, who have seen the light of freedom," he said. "We are guaranteeing that this won't be the last time that prisoners are freed."
Abbas said that for the prospective fourth release he hoped that sick prisoners would also be freed, and that they would be sent home and not expelled to other places. He also said that he would not tolerate one Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail if there was to be a peace agreement."There won't be a final agreement with Israel until all the prisoners are released."

According to a pro-Shiite newspaper, "research" has shown that Qaradawi's family came from an area where
Jews of the Bani Qurayza tribe had fled from Arabia to Egypt. His grandfather practiced usury, just like the Jews, and gouged farmers with high interest loans. He would confer with Jewish rabbis on how to do his immoral money lending business. In other words, while they don't want to say it explicitly, Qaradawi is of obvious Jewish descent!

Qaradawi had called for jihad against Syria and Hezbollah, which pretty much explains this whole accusation.

The Palestinian ambassador to Rome launched a campaign Friday to raise funds through movements, associations and private citizens for the population of the Gaza Strip. ... ''We are asking Italians to help prevent the latest in a long string of tragedies,'' Palestinian ambassador Mai Al-Kaila told journalists in outlining the initiative Una Coperta per Gaza ('A Blanket for Gaza').

In Gaza, the rain and snow of the past few days led to a breakdown of the precarious sewage system, flooding the streets of towns and villages and swamping homes, schools and infrastructure never repaired after the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead. Clean water was mixed with waste water, and now there is not a single tap for clean drinking water in the entire Gaza Strip, which 1.8 million Palestinians call home. The Palestinian ambassador noted that amid this situation, Israel has not only continued with its embargo that prohibits even the entrance into the territory of medicine, but also opened its dams, through which the Israeli State's waters are flushed out into the Mediterranean, contributing to the breakdown of the entire sewage treatment system and flooding Gaza with putrid mud. The situation is entirely out of control, the ambassador said, calling for ''international mobilization'' for the people living in the Gaza Strip, most of whom have been left without a roof over their heads,food, drinking water, and heating. ''Over half of the population in Gaza live in refugee camps,'' Mai Al-Kaila noted, ''in tents and makeshift shelters.'' ... Encouraging the Palestinian diplomatic office to launch the campaign, the ambassador said, ''were in part Pope Francis's words at Christmas and his appeal to share with the poor.

The donations (20 euros for a blanket) should be addressed to "Una Coperta per Gaza"/ Missione Diplomatica Palestinese/IBAN: IT 36 E 02008 05211 000021004086

Funny. I follow Gaza pretty closely and this is the first time I have heard that there was a shortage of blankets. .

It is also interesting to read that Israel prohibits medicines to Gaza (they don't,) Israel opened "dams" (that don't exist,) and that most Gazans don't have shelter or live in tents or temporary structures (which is absurd) and that over half of Gazans live in refugee camps (actually, about 30%.)

The PLO ambassador to Italy (who used to work for UNRWA) knows the truth. But she knows something more important: that lies that are provided as part of a "humanitarian aid campaign" will not be questioned by most people. Who would presume that blankets for people who don't have a blanket shortage is a cover for anti-Israel lies? Especially when Pope Francis is quoted to support the campaign of falsehood!

This "charity" is nothing of the sort. It is skillful propaganda directed by the PLO. And they know, from experience, that anti-Israel lies will be swallowed whole, especially when disguised as "humanitarian aid." (I fully expect that not a single blanket will be sent to Gaza from this campaign - no one is asking for them. Israel routinely sends truckloads of blankets, sheets and mattresses to Gaza.)

I found a photo of Mai al-Kaila from when she was "ambassador" to Chile. Note the map behind her that erases Israel - a map that features the Fatah logo:

Here's video of Abbas welcoming the terrorists as heroes and his speech at the ceremony.

During his speech Abbas said "We promise that it will not be the last time, but there will be a batch of heroes coming to us all the time and in the near future, God willing....This is the day the joy of all of us the joy of our people for our prisoner heroes who came out today to the light of freedom to live free, we congratulate you and congratulate ourselves with these heroes who arrived here and who arrived in Jerusalem, Gaza, and the rest will come, God willing."

He said that soon there will be a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem and the Palestinian flag will fly over the minarets and churches of Jerusalem.

Turkish riot police have blasted opposition protesters with water cannons, tear gas and plastic bullets in Istanbul in scenes reminiscent of the summer's mass anti-government demonstrations.

Some of the protesters on Friday evening threw rocks and firecrackers at police, shouting, "Catch the thief!" in reference to a widening corruption scandal gripping Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.

Similar protests were held in the city of Izmir, and in Ankara where police also fired water cannons to disperse the crowds.

Police blocked hundreds of protesters from gathering in Istanbul's central Taksim Square and pushed them away to the nearby streets.

At least 31 people, including three lawyers, have been detained in Istanbul, according to the Istanbul Bar Association.

Thousands of Erdogan backers, meanwhile, gathered at other spots showing their support for the embattled Erdogan.

Twenty-four people, including the sons of two former government ministers and the head of the state-owned financial institution, Halkbank, have been arrested on bribery charges.

Media reports say the probe is over alleged illicit money transfers to Iran and bribery for construction projects.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party is being directed by "arrogance," former Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said in a news conference on Friday announcing his resignation, adding that he was parting ways with the AKP.

Erdogan has continued to ignore the demands to step down.

"Those who call it a corruption inquiry are corrupt themselves," he told a large crowd of his supporters on Friday as he returned to Istanbul from a political rally in the northwest.

Erdogan also criticised politicians who quit his party because of the scandal, saying they "betrayed us along our journey"

Turkish police detained a woman in the western province of Manisa on Dec. 29 after she protested against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with a shoebox, in a reference to money found in shoeboxes during a major corruption operation.

Police seized $4.5 million in cash in shoeboxes during the bribery raid in the house of Süleyman Aslan on Dec. 18, the general manager of the state-run lender Halkbank.

The woman, identified as Nurhan Gül, reportedly showed a shoebox from her balcony while Erdoğan was addressing his supporters during a rally in Manisa’s Akhisar district. Shortly after Gül’s protest, police and bodyguards of the prime minister came and detained the woman.

Gül has been released pending trial after she was taken to the police station and questioned for two hours.

“I waved the empty shoebox and sat at my balcony. I did not use any word or verbal expression. Bodyguards and police came to my house after one or two minutes. They asked who waved that box. I was detained after saying it was me,” Gül said in her testimony.

Amazingly, not one university association is calling to boycott Turkey, or is even publishing a statement about its corruption, arbitrary arrests, denial of freedom of assembly or any other violations of human rights. They must have overlooked it.

Please, Israeli government, I beg you: Don’t go looking for my son’s killers. The ones who cruelly beat Koby and Yosef to death with rocks, the barbarians who attacked two eighth grade boys — my son and his friend — who were on a hike near our home in Israel. Please don’t find them. Don’t apprehend them and put them in jail and make my family and me sit through a long trial and sentencing, where my heart will quake and my stomach will constrict and I will feel that I am about to faint.
Don’t find them guilty and put them in jail. Because I don’t want the torture of knowing that these killers will find their way to freedom one day, will be greeted by their mothers with hugs, while my son and Yosef lie in the ground. I could not bear to go through what 26 Israeli families are going through today: betrayal by the government that is supposed to protect them.

11-year-old Roi Fogel, whose parents and three siblings were brutally murdered by Arab terrorists in the Shomron town of Itamar in 2011, wants to know why the Israeli government is releasing terrorist murderers.

On December 28th the Israeli Prison Service published the list of prisoners scheduled for release later this week, representing the third round of four scheduled releases agreed upon by Israel’s prime minister as a ‘goodwill gesture’ to get the Palestinians to resume peace talks.
As we have noted previously, many newspapers (including the Guardian, Independent, and Irish Times) have whitewashed the violent crimes of the prisoners being released and all but ignored the victims. So, in addition to details about the perpetrators and their crimes, we’ve also included some information on the Israeli (and Palestinian) victims.

Head of the Census Department, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, said that Israel deliberately targets young Palestinians, including children, because they are the core of the society, and its moving factor.

The former political prisoner added that Israel fears the Palestinian youths for their steadfastness and their persistence to achieve liberation and independence.

Ah, a mind-reader! It cannot possibly be because most terrorists are under 30, could it?

PCHR counts far less than half these numbers. Unfortunately, they don't add them up in their annual reports, but a rough guess shows that they document perhaps 1000 arrests a year.

I couldn't find the actual report on the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainee Affairs website or Facebook page, so the entire report may be fictional for all we know. But it is fun to see that Hamas will twist even already twisted data.

Somehow, I don't think an email campaign asking them to correct their "error" would be too effective.

In January, Jordan's king was publicly trying to mainstream Hamas to the world. At the World Economic Forum he claimed that Hamas was "more open than ever" to dialogue with Israel, and a few days afterwards he claimed that Hamas accepted a two-state solution.

Of course, Hamas immediately and vehemently denied both reports, but it shows that King Abdullah was trying to mainstream Hamas as it was being propped up by Egypt and actively supplanting the PA diplomatically.

Things are quite different today.

The chairman of Jordan's Foreign Affairs Committee in its parliament said that Jordan has no intention to normalize relations with Hamas, and that its political leader Khaled Meshal was unwelcome in the kingdom.

In January, moderate Arab states were afraid that Islamists would ride the Arab Spring wave and take over all of the Middle East, so acting in a conciliatory way seemed to be a wise move to stay alive politically. Now, after Egypt's popular coup, the Islamists are the ones running scared and being marginalized again - as they were in the 20th century.

Reverberations echo widely.

Too bad that same lesson is not being learned in the West as far as Shiite fundamentalism is concerned.

However, most reports avoid the background on the antisemitic French 'comedian' and holocaust denier Dieudonne M’bala M’bala** (see, e.g. here and here). He is the one who invented ‘la quenelle', and he has a string of convictions in French courts for antisemitism, including just last week being found guilty of incitement to hatred and racial discrimination - a conviction which apparently triggered Anelka's response. Hence, not a single report has pointed out the curious nature of the 'defence' used by Anelka (and his club) that he was 'only making a dedication to his comedian friend'. On that basis any public figure doing a Nazi salute could justify it by claiming it is only a dedication to their friend Adolf Hitler for the unjust treatment he got from the media.

The Guardian stands alone in whitewashing the “comedian’s” clear record of anti-Jewish rhetoric – another antisemitic sin of omission at the “liberal” broadsheet which has, by now, achieved a well-earned reputation for such curious moral blind spots.

“As a leading sports figure on both sides of the Atlantic, Parker has a special moral obligation to disassociate himself from a gesture that the government of France has identified as anti-Semitic,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center’s told the website Algemeiner.

Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion to bolster Lebanon's armed forces, in a challenge to the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia's decadeslong status as Lebanon's main power broker and security force.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman revealed the Saudi gift on Lebanese national television Sunday, calling it the largest aid package ever to the country's defense bodies. The Saudi pledge compares with Lebanon's 2012 defense budget, which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put at $1.7 billion.

Lebanon would use the Saudi grant to buy "newer and more modern weapons," from France, said Mr. Sleiman, an independent who has become increasingly critical of Hezbollah. It followed what he called "decades of unsuccessful efforts" to build a credible Lebanese national defense force.

As a direct challenge to Hezbollah, the Saudi gift—and the Lebanese president's acceptance—has potential to change the balance of power in Lebanon and the region. It also threatens to raise sectarian and political tensions further in a region already made volatile by the three-year, heavily sectarian civil war next door in Syria.

This is a huge story for a number of reasons.

First of all, it is a power play by Saudi Arabia against Iran. Lebanon was considered a lost cause because of Hezbollah's military dominance and the West's lack of engagement in Syria. This gift instantly creates a powerful foil to the Iran/Hezbollah military axis in Lebanon and Syria.

Secondly, it shows that Saudi Arabia has decided to partially fill the vacuum being left by the current US hands-off policy in the Middle East (except, of course, "peace process" in which the White House has seemingly embraced the bizarre and discredited concept of "linkage.") Since no one can rely on America anymore in the Middle East, the Gulf countries are deciding to take matters into their own hands.

Thirdly, it shows that money can be just as important for power politics as military might. Saudi Arabia has cash, and now it is showing that it is willing to use it.

Fourthly, it might actually give a chance for the Lebanese army sometime in the future to enforce UNSC 1701 which is meant to disarm Hezbollah. This won't happen anytime soon; the Lebanese understandably have no stomach for another civil war, but Lebanon now has a chance to re-assert its sovereignty over its Iranian-controlled south.

The Lebanese army opened anti-aircraft fire on Monday at Syrian warplanes that hovered the eastern border town of Arsal.

According to state-run National News Agency, the Syrian warplanes prompted the Lebanese army to respond after it raided Khirbet Daoud, which lies in the Eastern Mountain Range in an area adjacent to the barren mountains of the town of Arsal.

LBCI reported that Syrian warplanes hit the area with three rockets.

It was the first time since the outbreak of the Syria's conflict three years ago that the Lebanese military took action to prevent Syrian warplanes from violating its airspace.

Would this have happened before the announcement of the aid? It seems unlikely.

As US influence fades, the pieces are moving and alliances are shifting into what will probably be a complicated balance of Shiite, Sunni moderate, Sunni radical and Israeli spheres of influence in the region. Russia and some EU countries will probably want to be involved to some extent as well., and there are plenty of wildcards like Turkey. The sheer number of possible moves makes every specific move far more significant - and potentially dangerous - than during the era of US hegemony.

The biggest loser is the US, and its missteps in the region will take decades to repair, if ever.

One of the most-mentioned anti-Israel topics is how Israel, by enforcing a six nautical mile sea blockade on Gaza, is stopping Gazans from being able to catch the fish that is so critical to their food supply. We are told that the best fish are past the six-mile zone and Israel is trying to starve Gazans. A new report from PCHR reportedly claims says that Gaza fishermen income has gone down 85% because of Israeli restrictions.

As usual, the truth is a bit different.

In fact, the entire Mediterranean has seen a marked downturn in the number of fish available. The main reason is simple - overfishing.

Traditionally, most fish have been caught within one mile of shore. Overfishing and bottom-trawling have turned large parts of the Mediterranean into virtual deserts, as the fishing methods used smooth out the natural spots for fish to lay eggs. After mature fish disappear from an ecosystem, overfishinggoes after the young fish and further disrupt the ability to naturally restock.

In Gaza, the number of fishermen are not regulated and thousands of boats are engaged in destroying the fishing ecosystem.

In other words, the reason that the fish supply in Gaza is so low is because Gaza fishermen are depleting the supply much faster than they can be replenished. This has nothing to do with Israel and it is a problem throughout the region.

Gaza has an additional problem in that raw sewage is being poured into the sea, which also destroys fish.

NGO bias against Israel ensures that they will ignore the actual biological facts about the Mediterranean and instead blame Israel, as always. The irony is that a smart fishing policy could, over years, help bring biodiversity - and fish - back to the coast of Gaza. But instead, these NGOs who could be helping find a solution are instead trying to ensure that the few fish remaining will disappear altogether - a very real prospect - because they would rather blame Israel than help fix the real underlying problem.

There is another unreported angle to this story. Israel is helping keep Gaza supplied with fish.

A fish farm in Gaza

Israel has pioneered the creation of fish farms in the desert. In Gaza, Israel has lent expertise and other help with building fish farms - farms that now supply some 30-40% of Gaza's fish, according to COGAT officials I spoke with. Some of the fish farms have cameras operated remotely by Israelis so they can watch and ensure that the proper processes are being used. This is a necessary move to ensure an adequate fish supply in the absence of any sane fishing policy by Hamas.

While the haters love to charge Israel with arbitrarily and capriciously destroying Gaza's fish supply, the truth is quite different.

In honor of the occasion, a Palestinian Arab singer created this video highlighting - what else? - Fatah militarism and violence.

The lyrics are nothing special:

I’m proud of the sons of Fatah/The coat of arms of which is the keffiyeh/with the olive branch and gun/I’ll protect the homeland with weapons in my hand
Our weapons are Abu Mazen and strong will/loving you streams in my veins...
We’ve learned from the old man (i.e. Arafat) what is freedom/How to sacrifice all that is dear to us and not to give up on the cause
Abu Ammar (i.e. Arafat) taught us what is freedom/How to sacrifice all that is dear to us and not to give up on the cause
We’re proud of this Fatah salute/greeting/May Allah protect you of fedayeen brothers/....Whatever happens, you are our identity...

But the visuals show the importance of violence for the culture of Fatah.

I like the tiny nod to Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) among the dozens of video clips of Arafat while calling him a "weapon."

Sunday, December 29, 2013

According to data compiled by The Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israel Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, some 19,200 immigrants arrived in Israel in 2013, a modest increase from the 18,940 who arrived in 2012.

2013 saw an overall increase of 35% in Aliyah from western Europe, with the arrival of 4,390 immigrants this year as opposed to 3,258 in 2012. The most dramatic increase was noted in Aliyah from France, which saw the arrival of 3,120 immigrants as opposed to 1,916 last year thanks to the Israel experience programs for French Jewish youth and Aliyah encouragement efforts amongst the French Jewish community. 2013 also saw the arrival of some 3,000 immigrants from North America, and 1,240 immigrants from Latin America in 2013 - a 34% increase over last year's 926.

The largest group of immigrants to Israel in 2013 came from the former Soviet Union and numbered 7,520 as well as 270 immigrants came from eastern Europe.

An increase in Aliyah in 2013 was noted elsewhere, as well: 265 immigrants came from Oceania (primarily Australia and New Zealand), a 46% increase over the 182 who came in 2012, and 204 immigrants came to Israel from South Africa, a 19% increase over last year's 172. 245 immigrants came to Israel from Middle Eastern countries in 2013, a 4% increase over last year's 236. 74 came from Turkey, similar to the number in 2012.

Aliyah from Ethiopia was down 44% due to the conclusion of Operation Dove's Wings, which brought the remainder of those who have been deemed eligible to immigrate to Israel and which saw the arrival of 1,360 immigrants this year, compared to 2,432 last year.

Another striking characteristic of this year's Aliyah is its youth: Some 60% of immigrants to Israel in 2013 were under the age of 35, including 37% between the ages of 18 and 34. This year also saw an increase in the number of young immigrants who participated in unique Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and Jewish Agency programs aimed at easing their integration into Israeli society.

Like last year, a majority of the immigrants to Israel in 2013 were female (some 10,000, compared to 9,000 male immigrants). The oldest immigrant was a 103-year-old man from the United States and the youngest was five weeks old, also from the United States.

Thousands of those who arrived in 2013 are professionals and graduates of academic programs in the humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and exact sciences, and more than 700 are doctors and other healthcare professionals. Many have joined special Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and Jewish Agency programs for university graduates.

Jerusalem saw the arrival of the largest group of immigrants in 2013, some 2,400 in total. Tel Aviv received some 1,650 immigrants, a 20% increase over last year's 1,373.

Arab media are reporting this quite a bit. The Arabs have a long history of trying to stop Jews coming home.

Back in 2008, I found a "study" that claimed that Israel had cost US taxpayers $3 trillion. Of course it was an absurd number, based on a bizarre estimate of how much oil prices went up since 1973 and blaming Israel for all of that.

Apparently, blaming Israel for costing the US $3 trillion is not nearly enough anymore. Some moron named Dr. Gideon Polya has gone from the merely crazy to batsh*t insane by now claiming that Israel has cost the US over $40 trillion!

For comparison, the annual US federal budget is about $3 trillion.

So how does this idiot come up with such an absurd number? Well, he takes the same $3 trillion number that had been estimated by the previous idiot, and adds $4-$ trillion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars which are of course Zionist wars, adds 0.7 trillion for the value of the lives of US servicemen who committed suicide since September 2001 (obviously Israel was behind 9/11), and then - to put icing on the cake - he claims that 15.6 million other Americans who died since 2001 are Israel's fault, and the value of their lives is $30 billion.

Polya helpfully adds, "This is an under-estimate because it does not consider the millions of preventable American deaths before 9-11 linked to Zionist subversion and perversion of America."

Just in case you don't get Polya's point, the name of this article is "American Holocaust."

Check out this brilliant analysis:

About 1.3 million Americans die preventably each year, the breakdown being as follows: 15,000 Americans are violently murdered annually; 21,000 avoidable under-5 year old US infant deaths annually; 21,000 US opiate drug-related deaths annually from US restoration and protection of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry; 30,000 Americans suicide annually, with 1 in 5 being US veterans; 31,000 gun-related US deaths annually; 33,000 Americans killed by motor vehicles each year; 45,000 US deaths annually from lack of medical insurance; 70,000 Americans die annually from air pollution (e.g. from coal burning, vehicle exhaust, carbon burning in general); 75,000 American alcohol-related deaths annually; 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic (medical personnel-related) causes ; 300,000 Americans die from obesity-related causes; and 443,000 Americans die from smoking-related causes (roughly 1 in 5 of all deaths and 49,000 or about 10% from passive smoking) [13, 14]. Some qualifications can be offered e.g. it should be noted that some of these areas overlap e.g. homicides and suicides overlap with gun-related deaths, and smoking-related deaths would take a long time to stop after nationally legislated cessation of smoking.

This huge carnage of 15.6 million preventable American deaths since September 2001 must be seen in the context of a fiscal perversion outlined in section #1-3 above in which $8-10 trillion in roughly today’s dollars has been committed in this period by the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist One Percenter American Establishment to the strategic interests of nuclear terrorist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel.

According to Polya, every American who died from disease or suicide or murder or pollution or alcohol or smoking or obesity since 9/11 has really died because of Israel. (His methodology of valuing their lives is also laughable, by the way - according to him, all these deaths actually saved America $30 billion. But logic is not Polya's strong suit.)

A quick search shows that Ma'an quotes Daghlas over 200 times since 2008, and yet I do not recall ever seeing a any independent evidence of any of his anti-Israel charges. Almost never are there photos of these alleged attacks, even though everyone has a camera on their cell phones nowadays.

But he is quoted, time and time again, uncritically, even though many of his accusations are proven lies.

The funniest part is that Ma'an illustrates some of his false accusations with photos of Arabs attacking Jews!

The striking thing about the Swiss “investigation” is that it was inspired and financed by al-Jazeera. The report itself is on al-Jazeera stationery, and the opening lines reveal that the entire thing was invented by al-Jazeera. At al-Jazeera’s web site, here, huge amounts of attention are devoted to proving that Arafat was poisoned. There are an amazing 41 “news” stories and documents listed under the headline “Al Jazeera Investigates: Killing Arafat.”
The other teams were not bought and paid for by al-Jazeera and they reached the opposite conclusion. In fact this recent hullabaloo about how Arafat died represents not new science or new evidence, but an effort by al-Jazeera to create trouble. It is yet another proof that al-Jazeera continued to operate in 2013 without the restraints of a normal news medium and should not be regarded as one. The government of Qatar –which owns al-Jazeera– changed during this year; there is a new emir and some speculation that he will rein in Qatari foreign policy. Thus far he has not reined in al-Jazeera, and its pretensions to be a Middle Eastern version of CNN or BBC should be rejected. This entire Arafat/poisoning affair shows us that al-Jazeera continues to pursue political goals and to manufacture what it hopes to persuade us is “news.”

Who is responsible?
PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas admitted that "Arab armies forced Palestinians to leave their homes" (Filastin A-Thawra, March 1976). On May 13, 2008, Al Ayyam, the second largest pro-Abbas Palestinian daily, claimed: "[In 1948] the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) told Palestinians to leave their houses and villages, and return a few days later, so the ALA can fulfill its mission."
The head of Britain's Middle East Office in Cairo, John Troutbeck, reported in June 1949: "Arab refugees speak with utmost bitterness of Egypt and other Arab states. They know who their enemies are. Their Arab brothers persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes." Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British high commissioner in Palestine, wrote on April 28, 1948 that the total evacuation was urged on the Haifa Arabs from higher Arab quarters. The U.S. consul-general in Haifa telegraphed on April 25, 1948 that "reportedly, Arab Higher Committee is ordering all Arabs to leave."

The ultimate insult to individual Israeli competitors was the failure to list their country as “Israel” in the players’ biographies. Instead they were identified as citizens of “FIDE” – a place with no Capitol, area or population.
Palestinian competitors fared slightly better – players at least having their country identified as “Palestine” in their biographies – although that country too is listed without a Capitol, area or population.One would be hard put to find a more blatant case of discrimination, racism and apartheid – – played out against children to boot.
What mindless morons representing Chess Federations in competing countries like America, Australia, England, Norway, Sweden, Canada and France allowed this farce to be perpetrated?

It is shocking, but not surprising, that in such a complex situation people such as the EU's Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are trying to force Israel to give up assets critical to its security. They are exerting their pressure in the wrong direction: they should instead campaign for citizenship for the Palestinians in the Arab countries, a quest that would quickly clear their heads of the nonsense of the "return;" stop the tide of money flowing into UNRWA and end the fiction of the "Palestinian refugees."
As the Arab countries -- relatively new artificial creations temporarily pasted together with the lies of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, disintegrate into their original warring tribes and sects -- Ashton, Kerry, et al are nevertheless trying to create yet another artificial state, "Palestine," which will quickly become another Islamist country, officially refusing, as a matter of policy, to recognize the State of Israel and seeking to destroy it.

America’s envoy in Israel sought on Sunday to dampen hopes raised by news reports over the weekend according to which US Secretary of State John Kerry offered to arrange for the release of Israeli-American spy Jonathan Pollard from an American prison.
“I suggest we don’t believe every media report,” Ambassador Dan Shapiro said in a Hebrew-language interview with Army Radio Sunday morning. “There’s no direct link between Pollard and the [peace] negotiations or the prisoner release. These are different issues.”

German-Palestinian Researcher Said Dudin: MEMRI Involved in Sowing Anarchy in the Arab World

Said Dudin: Do you know that Qatari gas is not sold in The Hague, but on Tel Aviv's stock exchange? As for politics, it is the Zionist leaders who are leading the sweeping anarchy, which only the idiots call "revolution" or "Arab Spring." The Zionist leaders, and I'd like to specifically mention Bernard-Henri Lévy, the criminal swindler Elie Weisel, Haim Saban and his institutes... It is the Zionist leaders who lead this, and therefore, it is no coincidence that none of the forces behind this sweeping anarchy use the slogans of the Arabs' sovereignty over their natural resources.

"On Dec. 16, 2013, the American Studies Association (ASA) endorsed a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. MIT is not a member of the ASA and has no connection to this boycott," Reif said."The concept of an academic boycott is antithetical to MIT values. It fundamentally violates the principles of academic freedom that are central to the excellence of MIT and American higher education," he said.

Two state lawmakers want to strip aid from universities whose faculty participate in academic organizations that urge a boycott against Israel.
Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) and Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) plan to introduce a bill that would give colleges and universities in New York 30 days to withdraw their support from groups like the American Studies Association, which recently voted for such an academic boycott.

I was absolutely disgusted to read you have defended the clearly antisemitic gesture “la quenelle”, made by Nicolas Anelka, by saying Anelka’s gesture couldn’t be antisemitic because he was making the gesture on behalf of a comedian friend. The comedian in question is a person with a vile antisemitic history and links with the National Front and Islamist Groups. His name, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala.

French Muslim soccer star, Nicolas Anelka, has drawn President Obama, rapper Jay-Z and singer Beyoncé into a controversy surrounding his use on Saturday of a gesture that is widely considered to be anti-Semitic, and has been described as “the Nazi salute in reverse.”
Under heavy criticism for publicly using the gesture, after scoring a goal for British soccer club West Bromwich, the athlete tweeted a picture of Obama and the pop culture icons motioning in a way that may appear to be similar. However, a 2012 report from the time that the picture was taken said that the group was “brushing imaginary dirt off their shoulder” in “an obvious reference to the Jay-Z hit song” entitled “Dirt off Your Shoulder.” (h/t Jewess)

“We hold the Lebanese government responsible for firing that is carried out from within its territory,” Netanyahu said ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, and noted that Hezbollah, by ”stationing thousands of missiles and rockets in apartments… is thus perpetrating two war crimes simultaneously. It is organizing the firing at civilians, just as it did today, and it is hiding behind civilians as human shields.”The prime minister spoke after two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon landed west of the northern Galilee town of Kiryat Shmona. No one was wounded and there was no damage reported from the attack.

Five rockets were fired this morning from Lebanon at Israel. The attack is an inexcusable and blatant violation of Israel’s sovereignty.
Residents of Israel’s north woke up this morning (December 29) to five rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel. One of the rockets landed west of Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli city near the Lebanese border. IDF forces responded with artillery fire toward the source of the launch.
At least five rockets were fired from Lebanon, with one confirmed explosion in Israel. The IDF is currently searching for evidence of others.

Several leaders from various factions in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Saturday urged Hamas to dissociate itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, some calling the Egyptian organization a "terrorist group," according to the Ma’an news agency.

A report compiled by the Palestinian Authority's security forces that was leaked to the media over the weekend, however, warned that chances of a third intifada are very high. The report recommended that the PA formulate contingency plans to combat the possibility that a violent uprising would erupt, so that it would not be "dragged after the street like in the Second Intifada."
The report details the various difficulties Palestinian security forces encounter while trying to thwart attack perpetrated by lone terrorists.

The operation to destroy Syria's chemical weapons program will miss its December 31 deadline, Mail & Guardian reported Saturday.
Franz Krawinkler, head of logistics for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), confirmed to Austrian state television Saturday that bad weather has delayed the transport of crucial supplies for the mission.

In at least seven southern provinces, security and local officials said that the authorities turned to armed civilians from anti-Islamist and pro-government families to provide support to security forces, help guard police stations and churches and confront pro-Morsi rallies.
One high-ranking Interior Ministry official said that this is part of a bigger deal between the security apparatus and the big clans in the south, the most conservative part of Egypt, which has a strong tradition both of inter-family feuding and of Islamist militancy.

Initial reports suggest that the Sunday explosion was caused by a hand grenade thrown at the building in Anshas, a village in Sharqiya province that houses a number of military facilities. The officials spoke anonymously in line with regulations.
Attacks on security targets have become frequent following the July 3 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. A Sinai-based militant group has claimed responsibility for a Tuesday car bomb at a Nile Delta security headquarters that killed 16.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement has signed a pact with the al-Qaeda-affiliated radical Salafi organization Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which claimed responsibility last week for a terror attack in the city of Mansoura, security sources told the London-based Arabic-language al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper.
According to the sources, the Muslim Brotherhood has an alliance with another al-Qaeda-affiliated organization. Meanwhile, senior Muslim Brotherhood member Ibrahim Al-Sayed said the Egyptian government's decision to declare the movement a terror organization was meaningless and would not harm the movement.

The robot revolution is a lot more advanced than most people realize. While robots are (correctly) assumed to carry out the will of their masters via detailed programs inserted into their memories, at least one Israeli researcher has developed a method for robots to “think” on their own. Professor Gal Kaminka, of Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Computer Science and Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center is one of Israel’s, and the world’s, leading contributors to intelligent robotics – the science of using artificial intelligence to make robots “smarter” – and this week he was awarded the prestigious Landau Prize for Arts and Sciences in the robotics category for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of science.

Hebrew University research teams have found how bacteria can survive treatment with antibiotics - even when the strain is not inherently antibiotic-resistant.
The discovery, which was published this week in prestigious science journal Nature Communications, could possibly improve treatment methods for bacterial infections.

Jorge Alarcao, an archeologist who was called upon to study the structures, told the paper: “This could be the only discovery of its kind made in Portugal.”
The structures appear to be mikvahs, or ritual baths, predating the 14th century which were designed for Jewish women, according to Alarcao.“It could be the most important archeological discovery made in Coimbra over the past 70 years,” Coimbra Mayor Manuel Machado told the paper.

Today, we present the UCR's vintage pictures of the Jews of Iraq. Suffering from pogroms, persecution, and confiscation of property, most of the Jews of Iraq left the country by 1951. The "Jews of Iraq" is Part 1 of a series that will include vintage pictures of Jews of Egypt, Syria and Turkey.﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

The University of Maryland Anwar Sadat Center polled Israelis and Palestinian Arabs last month about their attitude towards a peace framework:

1. A sovereign Palestinian state would be established. The boundaries would generally be based on 1967 borders, but Israel would annex 3-4% of the West Bank that includes major settlement blocks with comparable land swaps to be negotiated.2. Gaza and the West Bank would have a secure, unobstructed link, either in the form of a tunnel, highway or bridge.3. For Jerusalem, Israel would have sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods, while the new Palestinian state would have sovereignty over Arabneighborhoods. The Walled City would be under a special regime that would include both international control, and Israeli and Palestinian participation.4. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians would have military forces in the Palestinian state, but Palestinian Security Forces would handle internal security in the Palestinian State. International military forces, such as NATO forces possibly under American command, would be stationed along the Jordan River.5. Palestinian refugees would be compensated for loss of property, would be allowed to return to the Palestinian state, with a limited number being allowed to return to Israel.6. Palestinians would recognize Israel as a state of the Jewish people and of all its citizens.7. Israel and Arab and Muslim states would establish full diplomatic relations and open trade.8. Israel and the Palestinians state would explicitly agree to end the conflict and Palestinians would relinquish all claims pertaining to the conflict.

Here are the arguments that Israelis (including Arabs) found convincing in support of the plan:

And those against:

The arguments that PalArabs found convincing in support of the plan:

And against:

According to the survey, when both sides were asked if they would accept this plan assuming that the other side accepted it, both sides found it acceptable (63% for Israelis, 59% for Palestinian Arabs.)

There are some contradictory findings, though,. For example, most Palestinian Arabs said that they found it completely unacceptable if there is no full "right of return" and a majority of Israelis found such a "right" completely unacceptable.

But Ibrahim Abaza, a leader of the Salafists in Egypt, said that the Muslim Brotherhood is even worse than the Jews are. You see, the jews are an external enemy and they don't influence Muslims to act contrary to their religion, but the Brotherhood is more dangerous to Islam than the Jews becsuse they are tearing Islam aparts from the inside, and contributing ignorance and stupidity and deviation of Islamic doctrine and deviant ideas among the people of Islam.

It feels so important to be the yardstick of evil for 1.5 billion people.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Releasing murderers in the name of peace is truly one of the most bizarre acts that any sovereign nation has ever done.

This is mostly taken from The Jewish Press, translating a document from Israel Prison Service, a list of terrorists slated to be released this week and the names of their victims. For some I added links or other details of the terror acts and the victims.

French children's magazine Youpi published this in its latest edition. The translation is "We call these 197 countries state...

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون

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